Few simple foods are more vexing to cook than rice for whatever reason. Recently, Marisa tried a new Tiger rice cooker that takes all the guess work out of that job. Joy covets the Instapot, which is a rice cooker/slow cooker/pressure cooker in one. What do you think? Should she get one?

Have you ever been to a food swap? That’s a community event when home cooking fanatics get together to trade some of their stash of good eats for some of yours. Marisa co-organizes one in the Philly area, but if you are interested you can probably find one close to where you are. Find yours (or start one) here.

This episode features an interview with Leanne Brown, whose food-stamp-themed cookbook Good and Cheap has really struck a chord with people in all income brackets. We talked to her at the Philadelphia Free Library’s amazing Culinary Literacy Center.

In advance of every home cook’s favorite holiday, we talked over every aspect of Thanksgiving.

We started, naturally, with planning and strategy–how far out do we start thinking it through? What do we do in advance? What are the key Thanksgiving organization tools?

Appetizers or no appetizers? Should we start with soup? That is the question. One of Joy’s favorite holiday recipes is these Sausage Potato Puffs.

We talked turkey: Both Joy and Marisa ordered their birds via Fair Food Farmstand. (Philly listeners can still pre-order their very own by clicking here.) We also address brining methods (wet or dry?) and whether to roast the turkey whole. One of us stuffs the turkey with stuffing; one of us does not.